


Red Velvet

by catcorsair



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom - Susan Kay, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Anger, Angst, Angst and Porn, Awkward Conversations, Begging, Blood, Bodily Fluids, Box 5, Clothed Sex, Consent, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Costumes, Cuckolding, Denial of Feelings, Desperation, Drama, Erik is Soft and Confused, Everyone Has Issues, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Feelings, Fingerfucking, Firsts, Hand Jobs, Hate Sex, Horniness, Idiots in Love, Jealousy, Loss of Virginity, Love, Lust, Marriage Proposal, Mildly Dubious Consent, Misunderstandings, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, One Shot, Oral Sex, Orgasm, Porn, Possessive Behavior, Public Hand Jobs, Public Sex, Red Death - Freeform, Relationship(s), Roughness, Sad, Sexual Content, Shame, Slow Build, Smut, Some Humor, Tension, Voyeurism, but also love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:47:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27118426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catcorsair/pseuds/catcorsair
Summary: Terrified of losing her, Erik makes one last attempt at winning Christine.
Relationships: Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera, Raoul de Chagny/Christine Daaé
Comments: 28
Kudos: 127





	Red Velvet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NotAGhost3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotAGhost3/gifts).



_**Red Velvet** by catcorsair_

_**Please Review ;)** _

* * *

Why had she sought refuge here, of all places? On the roof of the Garnier she had already revealed all; Raoul promised that he would take her away to safety. She would be safe from _him_ forever. And yet, as soon as they had parted, she found herself rushing down the million stairs of the colossal opera house, only to find herself once more in his domain.

Box five. Alone, as the masquerade carried on, joyful and oblivious down below, and hundreds of masked faces reveled in anonymity.

Tonight, she knew, Erik wandered these halls and half-lit places unshrouded. The Opera Ghost in all his repulsive glory; his bare, horrible face readily visible to all those who dared to see. For all the delirium of the Ball Masque––a fantasy world built of lies and liars––tonight, the Phantom of the Opera was the only honest man among them.

Tonight, he was simply Erik.

And here he was, haunting his box like a true spectre; Christine gasped and flung a hand to her throat, fingering the simple cross she wore as he stepped from the shadows into the dimly lit chamber, his Red Death's costume melding uncannily with their surroundings. He was everywhere: Christine could hardly tell where the velvet lined walls ended and the Opera Ghost began. Now as he stalked towards her it was as if the very space were closing in, and she sucked in a ragged breath to steady herself. When he raised a gloved hand to touch her flushed cheek she started; crimson fingers unfurling, he let the hand fall between them.

"So you are conspiring to leave me?" he said tacitly, as Christine's stomach sunk to the floor. How could she think he would not have known?

She clutched at the back of a chair, sidestepping to place the useless barrier between them. There could be no purpose in lying to him now. "I don't know, Erik," she admitted, ashamed, as she mindlessly clawed her nails into the wood, "I am so torn."

Only moments ago, upon the roof of the Opera, it had all seemed so clear: Erik was a villain, cruel and dangerous, from whom she must escape, because Raoul had said it was so; when the Vicomte whispered the words in her ear, just before he pressed his lips to hers, she believed him. In that moment, she would have believed anything he told her, because it was so easy to do so––

Now Erik traced the tip of a red-gloved finger along the intricately carved rosette of the chair between them, his touch threatening her own; Christine pulled her hands away to fold before her heaving chest. "The Vicomte is only a child, Christine," he growled, yellow eyes following her retreat, "I am your Angel. But it is him to whom you now swear your allegiance?"

"You kidnapped me!" she countered, hating the revealing trembling in her throat, "lied to me! I am right to want to escape you––"

"I have done as you claim." On a long sigh, he carefully removed his plumed hat and deposited it into the chair; Christine stared at the shuddering feathers as he passed a hand over his head, smoothing his thin hair from his corpse's face. "And yet, Christine, I doubt you mean what you say."

"For _two weeks_ you held me against my will! What am I supposed to say––"

"Against your will?" he chided softly, flaming eyes flashing, "do you really believe that to be true?"

"It must be!" she insisted, too-loudly, then pressed a hand to her lips. "Oh, if it is untrue, am I not already a fallen woman? Erik––"

A frown darkened his grotesque features. "You cannot fall from such great heights, Christine," he countered, and she could not ignore the implication of such weighted words. The manner with which he now spoke sparked in her that familiar, alarming heat, that fire which threatened to consume; she met his naked, avid stare, unable to look away. Erik had always understood her better than she was herself able; now, the knowing look in his yellow eyes terrified her.

"Tell me you do not love me," he said suddenly, urgently, every cell in him radiating something she could not dare to think on, something she could not admit even to herself, "tell me you feel nothing between us. Tell me this, and I will free you. You may leave with the boy, unharmed… Christine," he pleaded, his impassioned voice quieting to the barest whisper, "can you say it? Say it, _mean it_ , and you will never have to see me again!"

When Christine would not reply, only staring at his ugly, wanting face until tears stung behind her eyelids, he added, anxiously, imploringly, as if all he had ever desired were that the following words prove true, "if you will not tell me no, Christine, you must tell me yes––"

Nothing made sense in the presence of the Angel.

"You know I cannot say this thing!" she stammered, shattering the heavy silence which had descended like a pound of lead between them. "You are very important to me, very dear, Erik––"

" _Dear_?" he echoed, breaking their gaze with a lazy clicking of his tongue. On a long exhale he turned, glancing out of the box to survey the revelment in the grand auditorium beyond––the palpable gaiety Christine knew he could never share in, even on a night of freedom such as this. He stared ponderously for several moments, his gnarled lips drawn in a tight line. Then, in a low growl that sent a shiver up her spine, he added, "you lie to speak such a word."

"I do not!" Christine swore, reaching forward as if to capture his arm but at the last moment drawing away; Erik turned, swiftly enough to startle, and followed her movements with a narrowed eye. Ashamed tears spilled over at the corners of her eyes as she stumbled over her protestations; swiping at them with the back of a palm, she stammered, "Erik, you––you mean a great deal to me––!"

"And yet you so readily reveal my secrets to my enemy!" His gruesome face was as hideous and horrible as ever, even within the forgiving obscurity of the dark loge; the red velvet upholstery reflected off his translucent flesh, making the skin appear ruddy and irritated, as shadows carved deep furrows of his waxen features. Unable to look at that ghastly face contorted in anger, Christine fixed her gaze to her feet as he continued, tempestuously, "you will so easily flee me, _abandon me!_ Christine, with _him_ ––and without so much as a good-bye, after all that I have done for you?"

"You misunderstand––"

But he crowded upon her, suddenly gripping at her skirts such that she stammered an anxious cry. "Your _dear_ Erik was there with you and your lover on the roof, pretty Delilah. I heard it all––every simpering word, every heartless deception––do you detest me so much? Christine, Christine," he moaned, his rancor collapsing into revolting anguish, "you were meant to _love_ me! You were meant to be mine, mine _alone_ ––!"

She despised herself for her callous betrayal of him. Even with the curtains lifted, the veil of her Heavenly fantasies torn asunder, was this man not still her Angel? Was he not more? "Erik, I am sorry!" she wailed, attempting frantically to release her skirts from his iron grasp, "oh––I never intended for you to hear!"

"And yet, I have." His uneven eyes narrowed to thin slits in that ruin of a face. "I saw you _kiss_ him, Christine. Two weeks with me, at my side, as my Queen––" With a rough tug and a slow unfurling of his fingers, he released his hold on her; Christine scrambled to straighten her gown about her revealed ankles. Something had changed in his expression, such that her grip tightened unconsciously, crumpling the flamboyant silks; cold sweat peppered above her dry lip. "Sweet girl," he growled, his gaze darting over her trembling shape, "you have never kissed your _dear_ Erik as you have done him."

"It was a silly kiss, only!" Christine insisted, blushing hotly, "a kiss between friends!" It was not, of course; Raoul's kiss had ignited her to something she had never acknowledged in herself before, and yet it was only a cinder to that fire which had always burned in the Angel's stare––

"And if _Erik_ kissed you now?" She felt her heart shudder to a stop; he was advancing toward her even as she backed away, his red fingertips caressing the velvet hangings as he pressed her forward. She gasped when the backs of her legs made contact with the banister; for a moment, for the strange look in those blazing eyes, Christine wondered if he might push her over the edge.

He frowned, pausing in his advance. "Why are you still so frightened of me?" he said softly, "what reason can you give? I have never harmed you in any way, nothing… and yet you throw your arms around that boy, you give him your lips so wantonly, you press your body onto his––do not shake your head at me, I saw you, girl!" She cowered unconsciously, remembering his explosive fury at her theft of his mask as he continued, his low words heavy with unsaid things, " _dear_ Erik has hardly even touched you, Christine … "

Again he raised a tentative hand to her cheek. When his fingertips made the barest contact with her skin she shuddered, thoughtlessly recoiling; he pulled away as if stung. "Ah," he sighed, "must you always think so poorly of me?"

Still she could not find the words to speak; after several moments staring, waiting for her reply, he gave a disdainful snort at her continued, guilty silence, then gripped her wrist to spin her quickly around such that she cried out in terror––"damn it, Christine, I am not going to harm you!"––until she was again pressed to the box's velvet-cushioned balustrade, looking out over the festivities from the shadows with him close behind.

"Look, down there," Erik breathed, his voice like the serpent's in her ear, lightly directing her chin with the backs of his red fingers, touching her and yet not at all, "what do you see?"

It was a kind of Eden, down below. All of Paris had crowded the great room for the night, some just to spectate, some to indulge in a host of thrills and vices that proper society dare not permit. It was beautiful; a hundred thousand candles flickered in glittering crystal holders, refracting their uncanny light about the massive, red room. Piles of champagne in gold rimmed glasses were offered in abundance by elegant servers in crisp, black suits, grave darkness among such otherworldly flamboyance, who maneuvered about the twisting, writhing crowd like spectres upon the space where five-hundred velvet chairs normally occupied. Women and men of all shapes and standing flitted about, robed in exquisite finery to cheap, garish costumery, their once-perfect coiffures frizzy, their painted faces running in the stifling, airless heat. It was a hypnotic pandemonium; to Christine, high above it all on her pedestal, it appeared as if the crimson mouth of Hell itself had opened its gaping, swallowing maw below her, a temptation in diamond light and blood red as thousands of revelers danced and swayed, a crush of bodies in brilliant color writhing together in that red velvet pit. Throbbing in her overwhelmed ears, she heard the hum of a thousand voices, the buzzing of a million insects that could only belong to the Lord of the Flies; and he was in the flesh behind her, was he not, for this was Red Death's domain––

"This world is mine," he told her, as if in answer to her thoughts, his sirenic words as strong and sure as ever though the paralyzing din, "and yours too, Christine, should you only permit me to share it with you––"

Amid all the splendor, hidden in plain sight, there was prurient, seductive sin, Hellish temptation all around. Against a wall, a chorus girl coupled unashamedly with a chauffeur; behind the bar, a red-nosed patron had his hand buried in the skirts of a ballerina, as the dancer shared a languid kiss with a graceful woman in a black feathered mask. Two men in tall hats and painted masks whispered together in a shadowy corner, as one slid his hand into the trousers of the other, as, in the center of all the revelry, a barrel-shaped man in a bull's guise folded over a flailing woman in crumpled white feathers on the floor, amidst a circle of stumbling onlookers jeering and cackling as bile churned in Christine's stomach high above. She felt the heat rising in her cheeks, afraid to look even as Erik directed her gaze; it shamed her to see such decadence, such godlessness, though she could not reason why––

"Fools for lust, for pleasure, aren't they?" Erik whispered, soft laughter alighting in his throat, "but how free they are. I offer you all of this, Christine, my whole world… they could be our slaves, _your_ slaves, if you stay. The best of Paris, at your feet––"

"All of this?" she echoed, disgusted, enthralled.

His body pressed closer to hers. "If you will love me, and no one else. If you will share your love with _only_ Erik, all of your love, _only_ for Erik––"

Thoughtlessly, her gaze surveyed the room, taking in the seductive display as her weight eased against the man behind; for it was beautiful, was it not? This strange, dark universe he promised her. Why shouldn't she become the celebrity he could fashion her into? Why must she hide herself away, a Vicomte's mistress, plucked and wilting like a spoiled flower, when here, she could live as a Queen? His hips moved against her rear, testing, as he added breathily, "but perhaps the bill is too high for noble Christine?"

"No," she whispered, "it is a reasonable trade," as he gave a strangled groan behind her. His gloved hand flexed against the balustrade.

"So you will return home with me, tonight?"

Leaning into him, his breath hot on her throat, she nearly whispered, _yes_ ; but just then, near the far side of the massive auditorium, on the stage beneath the blood-red proscenium arch, Christine saw him; unaware, Raoul paced about from reveler to reveler, clutching a shoulder here, a hand there, as if he were asking the same urgent question, again and again––

_Have you seen Miss Christine Daae?_

He was searching for her. All it would take was a shout, a wave, and she could reveal herself to him; why did she find herself frozen where she stood, her skin prickling with forbidden heat under Red Death's insistent palms?

"Ah. Your heart's desire," growled Erik, suddenly capturing her shoulders in both splayed hands with uncharacteristic boldness, slowly driving his fingers into the bones. "He offers you love, freedom, and you run to him…" His grip upon her tightened enough to force her gasp as he hissed, his wrath barely constrained, "have I not done the same?"

"You have been very good to me," Christine breathed, wincing at his bruising touch, "you have been my teacher, and I am grateful for it––"

"And this is how you show your gratitude?" he seethed, furious, "you abandon me for the first pretty fop who gets you hot beneath your skirts?"

"Erik!"

" _Forget it_ ," he spat, then softened. "Christine, you cannot go with him now. You have so much left to learn! I have so much more to share with you, to teach you…"

She whimpered breathily as he dragged his hand down the side of her body and into the curve of her tensed waist. His palm barely wrinkled the fabric over her belly as his touch dipped below the balustrade; impatient, insatiable, his caress swept her hip, her thigh, setting a hundred fires upon her flesh. "Christine, my love," he said heavily, "you are a clever girl. Erik's clever, lovely, lovely girl. Do not trade all that I can offer you for _him_ … "

Amid the spectacle below Raoul turned about, squinting up into the audience. Christine gasped and gripped Erik's hand on her leg when her fiance's frantic gaze suddenly captured hers; his attractive brow furrowed and he froze where he stood, ignored among the bacchanal twirling and carousing about him. Raising his palm in a clumsy gesture of alarmed greeting, he mouthed, _Christine!_

"I need to go," she muttered, numbly, "I must go to him––I promised––"

But Erik ignored the words. Behind her he whispered wetly in her ear, tracing the pad of one thumb down the back of her tremulous throat as his other hand snaked about her own, settling tightly on her hip. "Of course, Christine," he murmured, his softly mocking tone veiling a deep well of anger, "I wouldn't dream of preventing you. But must you flee so quickly? When we apparently have so few moments left to share together…" Again his gloved fingers caught the side of her chin, forcing her gaze to the Vicomte below, this time with strength enough to make her gasp. "Could it be that you are afraid that he will find you here with his enemy, in his very den, having come to your capture _willingly_? You have had a few cups of champagne already, dear girl, have you not… your lips already primed with such sweet kisses…" His legs spread about her own, pinning her between his calves, his insult plain. "After all the work the boy has done to _excite_ you, surely he must imagine you to be in a very vulnerable position."

"Am I?" she breathed, sensing his heat against her rear.

"Do you think that you might be?"

"You would not dare harm me," she countered, as a sensuous shudder crawled the length of her spine, "not here, not with all these people watching––"

"Who is watching, Christine?"

"Raoul is watching––!" she hissed.

Erik laughed. "Dear girl," he teased, as if he were the guardian of some salacious secret, "you have nothing to worry about from me. The better question remains: can the boy trust in _you_?"

"He can," she swore, senselessly letting her head fall against his collarbone, fearing the opposite was true. "He trusts me with all his heart––"

"Of course," answered Erik, dryly, "all the same, we must not let him see our fond farewell, should he interpret it as something other than the tender goodbyes of two _dear friends._ Yes, Christine?"

"I suppose so, yes––"

"––and as such very _dear friends_ , I expect you will afford your very dear Erik one last chance at changing your mind?"

"Well, if you think you must, yes––"

" _Yes,"_ he echoed; then, on a rough intake of breath, as if in awe at what his hands enacted, his palm dragged heavily from her throat to carefully round her breast, nimble fingers slipping beneath her neckline to brush the tender flesh beneath. Christine felt her entire body go rigid under his hand, felt his muscles tauten as her weight settled against his strong frame. He curled his fingers at her hip tighter about her own, almost so much so that she thought the bones might break, and dug his nails into the fabric of her skirt.

Resistless, she whimpered, "so this is goodbye, Erik… "

"I suppose it is," he breathed, now brushing his open mouth over her bare shoulder as thumb and forefinger toyed with her piqued nipple, "though yours is hardly the body of a woman who wants to escape… "

Gasping in horror at her subconcious indiscretion, at Erik's boorish words, Christine jerked away from his touch to press herself against the barrier of the immovable balustrade. "What I want is not important, Erik!"

Still his hand at her hip gripped her tighter. "No?" he hissed, again vicious, "and what _do_ you want?" His hardness made itself plain as he spoke; he made no attempt to shield his arousal from her as he steadily pushed forward, shoving his erection against the base of her spine. "Oh, your Vicomte's kisses are sweet enough, Christine," he continued roughly, "I saw how easily you fell into his arms. He is a kind boy, a well-meaning gentleman, your little fop––"

"He only seeks to protect me!" she breathed, mindlessly savoring the indecent heat of him, that sinful promise beneath his clothes, "he thinks you mean to dishonor me––"

"Do you believe that is my intention?"

"Oh," she gasped, ready to surrender, "hasn't it always been?"

His hand at her chest slid lower, setting her belly to trembling as it dragged over her tautened abdomen, crinkling the taffeta of her skirts to brush lower, lower; "there is no dishonor in following one's heart, my girl," Erik murmured, teasing his fingers over the many layers of her skirts. "Only sublime, ecstatic pleasure, see…"

"Raoul loves me," she whispered, spreading her thighs as his fingers pushed into the warm gap between them, "please, he loves me––"

Erik laughed. " _I_ love you."

It was a sin, she knew, what she was allowing him now, and yet she lacked the strength to shove his fingers away, to do anything else but whimper for _more_ , as her body betrayed her mind. Christine groaned into his seductive touches, bringing her hand behind her to clutch at the red layers of his costume, binding him closer, even as she stared blankly at her lover––the man she had just agreed to marry––gazing up at her from the orchestra below.

"Tell me the truth, Christine," Erik whispered, his words like silk, though strangely plaintive, "have you not hungered for this?"

She thought of those nights beneath the opera, those two weeks spent in his surreal underworld, where nothing was as it seemed or should be; this man who sang with the voice of an Angel but wore the Devil's face, his toxic, terrifying love, which burned such that Christine ached with the fever of it; his rage like a storm, which unnerved and excited her, until she wished for the release of her own destruction. Mustn't a man like that be a villain? How many nights had she waited, sitting up in her bed with her nightgown buttoned up to her chin, and her fingers wound to whiteness in the sheets? And yet, her door had never once opened––

How many mornings had she awoken, disappointed to find herself alone?

"I have," she whispered, catching her faltering breath as he muffled a groan; the words were a freedom that registered deep in the pit of her, sending a shiver like lightning up her spine. "You know that I have. But you must see that I have a reputation to uphold! My career depends upon it! I could not––"

"It is what _he_ thinks of you that you care about, scheming Delilah, and no-one else," Erik spat. "After all that you have told him, does he truly still believe you pure?"

"I am!" she whimpered, breathless.

"Oh, I am well aware of _that_ , my love. Go on, then, cry injustice all you like, but when you came to me, you did so willingly." He pressed the hollow cavity of his rotted nose to the back of her throat as his fingers swept her warmth, delicately pleading in their obscene touches. "Even the boy knows it. Do you think he will ever trust your word? Do you think, one year from now, five years after that––after the excitement of your elopement has long faded, and his enjoyment of your fresh, unused body alongside it––that he will not use his knowledge to wound you? Where lies the difference, love? Why not allow yourself the crime you have been convicted of, if you are still condemned to do the time?"

Another moment and she would be lost, she knew; weakly, even as a soft moan blew from her open mouth, she protested, "but you deceived me, terribly… "

"Would you have loved me if I had not?" He exhaled roughly as one long finger found her clit through her layers of skirts and she allowed him the trespass; she hissed a whine between her teeth, moving her hips into that forbidden touch. "In all our days together, have I ever bid you––even once, Christine––to do anything you did not want to do?"

"It does not matter! I cannot trust you," she whispered, as his delicately-skilled touches weakened her knees, "even now, I cannot trust you––"

"It is a risk we both must take. My love, you stayed with me for a fortnight. Two weeks, in my home, alone with me..." His twisted lips teased the lobe of her ear as Christine stifled a wanting moan and he continued, breath moist upon her flushed cheek, "fourteen nights, with you sleeping on the other side of an unlocked door. If I truly were the monster you fear, the monster you think you need saving from, do you think that you could still claim your treasured maidenhead?"

"My fear was _not_ unfounded!" she protested, with less conviction than she had hoped, "do not try to claim otherwise, just because you never––"

"If I had wanted to do it, Christine, I would have, easily," he spat, as his fingers work became rougher, almost bruising in their assault, and Christine buckled against the immovable force of his body, against the building pleasure in the pit of her belly, "I still could. I have given you the choice. So what else is he saving you from? Because it isn't your virtue. The rumours his actions alone have prompted about my Opera would prove otherwise––rumors from which I have attempted to spare you––"

"Erik, he has not––!"

" _I_ know that, damn it!" he said roughly, his canorous voice hot and labored in her ear, panting with the fervor of his fingers, "but _they_ do not. To the rest of them out there, to the whole of Paris, Christine, he has made you his whore––"

"If I am only a Vicomte's whore, then, why still waste your time with me!"

He thrust his hips against hers, forcing her cry and her fingers to scrabble and squeeze at the banister as he growled, "because if you are a whore you will be _mine_ , and mine alone, girl. And I am _tired of waiting!_ "

The plainness with which he spoke mortified her; to speak so freely of her virtue as if it were a card laid out on a table, a card he could so easily pluck between his fingers––

A card he intended to play to keep her.

"Do not insult me with your girlish shock," he seethed, "you have made it perfectly clear that you have always expected it of me!" He said the words with the faintest hint of surprise, as if by speaking them, he had learned some truth which had long evaded him; in an extension of his thoughts, his fingers slowed, taking up a gentle, calculated rhythm. "You say you do not trust me, you did not trust me then. And yet behind your bedroom door, you took off your underthings every night… you slipped your naked, defenseless body into that God-damned tub…" His breath heated her skin, set the hairs on the back of her throat to prickling as he continued softly behind her, "is it true, then? That when you followed me down below, you believed that I would––to a guest in my own house?" His hand darted from between her thighs to hang lamely between them, the fingers twitching in their red glove. "Truly, you think this of me? That I would behave so? That––that all I have ever intended––"

"How could I have known what you intended!" she hissed, as a new rush of hot blood flooded her cheeks, "I was at your mercy, entirely, down there! Was I not also prey to your whims?"

Something in his deportment changed, the barest falter in his preformative confidence; quickly regaining himself, he spat, "then why would you come! Why follow a man whom you believe to be a monster? Christine, your skills at self-preservation certainly leave something to be desired!"

His fingertips padded hesitantly at her bicep, as if unsure of where to touch her, what to do with his hands at all; he cleared his throat with an odd, dry cough. "You must know that I would never harm you, never," he said, his words strained, uncomfortable, as he took a step backwards from her, "you were in no danger with me, nor are you now. I would never have, Christine––a murderer, perhaps, but not that––" The last he said as if he were desperately attempting to convince himself that it was so: "I may not be a looker, my dear, but I do not need to stoop so low! A whole number of women have––more than you might guess––! And they damned well _enjoyed_ it! I didn't write the Opera for nothing––!"

He was flailing, she knew. She thought of his naked face, that gruesome, grotesque mockery of human flesh and bone that the man was cursed to wear above his proud shoulders, of the cruelty of beautiful women, and Erik's own weakness for the finest among them. With an ache she understood why her door had remained shut tight all those long nights, why he had never even made the attempt.

Not with her. Not with anyone else.

"Oh, Erik, I know that you wouldn't have," she said finally, lamely, hoping he could sense the apology in her words. "You heard all that I told him. I swore that you were more than respectful towards me!"

But even as she made the claim, she knew the words were not entirely true; Erik may not have come to her, demanded anything of her, but his desire for her was as plain as his love. That predatory yellow stare, in moments of famished weakness, could feel as obscene as if he had stripped down before her; that stare had the ability to assault as viciously as any man's hands were capable––

Erik coughed. "Few men are as perfect as your little fop," he said meaningfully, and Christine had the fleeting sensation that he was sniffing her hair. Then, after several pregnant moments, he continued, an air of finality to his practical tone, "perhaps I am not quite the lover you wished for, Christine. I am more monster than man, it is true. Your little Prince waits there below, your pretty courtier, ready to take you away to some such-and-such where I am _not_ …." His tone had softened, enveloping her in its familiar haze, like spun silk, like endless darkness, "... but I am your Angel, your King… stay with me, my sweet Persephone… let me make you my Queen… "

"A Queen?" she echoed.

"A Queen. But Christine… it must be your choice alone. You understand what you are granting me should you acquiesce; but it is just a measly thing, in return for all that your King will lavish upon you… so this is the choice, Christine. A marriage, a kingdom... or a life as a mistress. Tell me, darling. Tell me now. Do you give yourself to me?"

"Yes," she swore, then catching herself, to Erik's answering growl, added, "oh, no–– _I don't know!"_

"Will you choose him, then?" he breathed, ravening, "will you leave?"

She threw her hands over her face and wailed, "I told you, I do not know! The two of you, back and forth, back and forth! I am not a damned cow at the market! I am not a cut of beef! Curse the both of you, can I not be trusted to think my own thoughts, to learn my own mind? Can I not––"

Christine uttered a small gasp of surprise as his flattened palm shoved into the small of her back, suddenly forcing her low against the barrier such that she was thrust forward to see into the box stacked below; in its lush and darkened red interior, Christine could see a woman, half-recognized, with her skirts pulled up about her waist, covering her mouth with a satin-gloved fist as a man kissed her between her thighs––as if her sex were the very spring of the water of life, and Christine wanted that kiss, too––

"You drive me mad!" Erik said roughly behind her, "I wish I had never met you! I wish I had never heard your damnable voice, you––you–– _ridiculous woman_ ––!"

His hands were on her thighs, dragging down the backs of her skirts; then, after a pause as if he had to convince himself to do it, his hand pushed between her parted thighs to brush once more against her sex. His entire body tautened, trembling and rigid behind her as she gave a startled cry and bucked against him, and then, without a word, his hand fled to claw into her skirts with the other, gathering the fabric in his splayed fingers to crudely draw her hems up her calves.

"Was this the fantasy, then?" he hissed, "your repulsive Devil, claiming you in the dark? Should only I have known! Oh, _fuck_ propriety! Fuck consideration, too! I am no gentleman… I could… oh, if you wish it of me, Christine, I could…"

In the box below, the man was unfastening his trousers, looking over the half-dressed woman as she writhed below; a dripping bottle of port dangled from her hand, staining the red velvet carpet a blacker hue. Behind her, Christine heard Erik's panting breaths and growled curses as he steadily rubbed himself against her rear, as if unsure of what to do next, while fighting his basest thoughts, as below, the man crawled atop his laughing companion, and her mouth opened wide in an ecstatic cry––

Suddenly Erik freed her to yank her upwards, then spin her about by his hand at her waist, quickly pulling her close against him; Christine could feel the hard press of his groin at her belly, the warmth of it through his ornate clothes. Panting, she brought her fingers to her sides to clutch at the balustrade to steady herself, digging her nails into the cushioned trim. "Stay with me," he breathed, his expression crazed, posessed, as he pushed himself closer, parting her thighs with a knee as he smothered her against the banister, " _choose_ me. I will do anything you want. Be _anything_ you want! But you must say it yourself-please, he cannot take you away from me! I cannot let him––"

One red palm cupped her cheek and jaw, forcing her straining face to his. Christine tried to turn away, afraid of the truth she could read in that grotesque expression, but he could not be moved; as his gaze burned into hers, he reached between them for her skirts, roughly shoving the fabric up about her thighs. "Marry me," he sputtered finally, frowning, his gloved fingers cool and unmoving on her inner thigh, their question unignorable, as Christine writhed with need for the return of his touch, "right here, tonight. Say your vows to me now, _do it right!_ Only God may serve as our Minister. Then I will make you my wife––"

"I will not marry without a church!" Christine protested, weakly, her upper thigh alight beneath his touch.

His grip tightened, the fingertips driving into the tender skin. "But you will marry me?"

"Oh, no––stop asking! Stop _asking!_ I cannot tell you either way!" In a frenzy of movement, Christine shoved Erik's hands from her; she moaned weakly in frustration as he captured her about the biceps and drew her close, shaking her slightly, such that their faces were nearly touching.

"Infuriating girl!" he hissed, abandoning his grip on her arms to thrust his hands between them. She heard the unmistakable rustling of his gloves working the fastenings of his trousers; his breath came ragged as he paused in his obscene action, to meet her stare and demand of her, "Christine, is this not what you want of me? Of _him?_ "

She attempted to wriggle from his hold and failed, whispering, trying not to look, "oh, Erik, I do not know what I want!"

"You do, child!" he growled, manic, halting her escape by capturing her wrist and dragging it between them; Christine gasped when he curled her fingers over his naked, rigid sex. " _Choose!_ "

His cock hung heavy and hot in her hand. For an instant which felt a lifetime, Christine simply held him, lost to the consuming expression in his yellow eyes, his mad, frantic stare; then, as if in a trance, under the seductive numbness of some hypnotist's thrall, she drew her palm up his length, gracelessly stroking her fingers over the silken flesh as he groaned and thrust himself into her touch. His twisted mouth had parted, as a shallow breath pushed between his lips; when Christine's thumb slid over his slick tip he shuddered and gripped her shoulder.

"I need to marry you, Christine," he said breathlessly, staring, as she began to slowly pump his cock in her fist. The way he looked at her set a fire in her belly; his desire was like a drug, and she craved more of it. How could she resist him? She never could before. That voice was the cruelest of sins, and how it seduced her, intoxicated her, as it continued, ardently, "I love you far too much––"

She felt herself spreading her thighs, leaning against the balustrade as she brought another hand to his sex, to fondle his sac as she worked at his shaft, and his shuddering hand slid up the inside of her thigh. "You want me," she whispered, "if you could have anything in the world, it would be me, would it not? My body. Right now––"

"Yes." he breathed, watching her fingers work his shaft, "I will die without you."

"You want to _fuck_ me."

"Yes." Slipping between the split of her panties, his trembling thumb stroked along the slick line of her naked sex; at Christine's wanting gasp, his mouth parted to hang open in reverent bliss, as his brow furrowed and water pooled in his bewildered eyes. He made a sound like a whimper as Christine moved her hips against him, and then he told her, his words heavy and thick, "if it kills me, Christine, I will have you before that ridiculous fop _Raoul-_ "

As soon as his panting mouth had opened to utter the name of her waiting fiance, Christine was brought back to herself, flooded with unbearable shame. "Oh, Christ––I couldn't––I should never have––" she wailed, weakly, "oh, off of me––get _off!"_ Pinching her thighs shut to bar his touch, she tore her fingers away from his dripping, insistent groin, terrified by her own senseless lust, her own repulsive need for him, a need she could never have acknowledged in herself only moments ago; a need that felt too much like desperation, too much like fear. How could this man hold such power over her, to demand her love and terrify her, all in a single breath? To reduce her to such animalistic, carnal desires––

To threaten a theft that would destroy her.

Why must she wish for destruction?

Again he gripped her at the hip, roughly turning her about to face the auditorium; when her eyes met her fiance's on the dance floor below, he smiled up at her as if startled to find her suddenly facing him, and raised one hand in a stunted wave. Absently, with the hand that had just grasped another man's cock, Christine returned the gesture, as behind her, cloaked in red shadow and hidden from the carousing universe below, Erik thrust his naked sex against the cleft of her rear and buried his face in the frizzy mess of her hair, inhaling deeply.

"What if I fucked you in front of him?" he growled, his teeth closing gently over the root of her throat. "Is that what you like? _He_ thinks he has won. _He_ thinks he has saved you from the violence of my _monstrous_ _immorality…_ " Another kiss, another brush of his lopsided mouth against her flesh. Another demanding thrust of his hips bucking hers into the balustrade, as her lips parted in a plaintive moan; "what if he learned that sweet Christine never wanted saving?"

She dug her nails into the red velvet, unable to break her stare with Raoul, still gazing helplessly up at her from the floor. Moaning weakly, now she made no protest as Erik slowly pushed her skirts up again about her hips, and brusquely tugged her pantalettes down to her knees, exposing the entirety of her bare rump and upper thighs to his desirous touch.

"Say the words, Christine," he said behind her, crushing her skirts in a heap at the base of her spine, as his other gloved hand stroked over the bare curve of her naked ass. Christine could not prevent the soft plea that spilled from her lips at the meaningful caress; prompted by her lascivious reaction, he gave a heady groan and slapped a hand across one cheek in a sharp strike, then dug his fingers greedily into the plump flesh.

"I must not do this," she breathed, recovering, "I _cannot––_ "

"You can do anything you want to do," he growled, repeating the strike to her rear as Christine drove her teeth into her bottom lip, attempting to strangle her automatic cry. Behind her, his ready manhood dragged hot and slick against her naked thigh, teasing at the throbbing place between her parted legs. "My love, why do you run from this? He only wants the same as I. He will take it, if it is offered. What makes him better than I, Christine? Why do you run to him, instead?"

"I don't––"

"Run to _me._ Let _me_ save you. Here," he breathed, as the tip of one gloved finger slid over her slit, "let Erik deliver you––"

"Erik, it's not–– _oh_ , this is madness!" she whispered, mindlessly grinding her hips against his, searching; beneath her, Raoul still watched her from below, his attractive brow furrowed. His head had tipped boyishly to the side as he stared; a lock of yellow hair fell, disheveled and ignored across his cheek. A man in a golden costume appeared at his side, talking animatedly; with uncharacteristic impatience, Raoul directed him away.

"Say yes, Christine," Erik purred.

She wanted to call out to her innocent, sweet fiance below, to have him come running up the grand escalier only to burst into the ghost's box and spirit her away, saving her from herself; she wanted to press her body to Erik's behind her and have him take her, claim her, bring her to his Hell below and never release her again––

Palming his shaft behind her, Erik prepared to enter her; she could feel his sticky heat so close to her bare skin, that promise of forbidden pleasure, that prurient pain, if she could only say the words. Now his free hand glided over her belly, yanking her body close as he thrust his own against her; still he was careful to keep his trespasses beneath the balustrade, invisible to all who might glance up from below.

And invisible to Raoul, staring with a look of utmost misery painted across his face.

She held her breath; mindlessly, she parted her legs and arched her back, as Erik gave a low sound of approval at her readiness. "Don't go with him, Christine," he whispered, again with his tormenting pleas, "you don't want him. You want Erik. I know you do. You want Erik. You must… you must…"

"Erik, I cannot––"

 _"No!"_ he hissed, silencing her. "You will stay with him! You will, you _want_ him..." A finger dug between her lips to touch upon her naked clit, rubbing a hard circle overtop it and forcing her senseless moan. "That's it, Christine," he murmured, "that's good. I love you. I love you. Say yes. Stay with Erik. Stay with me––"

Still she could not take that final plunge into that red velvet, she could not sever her bonds with the world up above: "I cannot make this choice," she cried out, "do not ask this of me!" Then on a throaty groan, as a frissioning of pleasure teased up her spine at his needful caresses, she added, desperate: "oh, Erik, decide for me––"

"So you want me to force you, after all?" he growled, gripping her roughly at the hips and thrusting his body against hers as Christine's hands flailed against the barrier, "to excuse you from your own desire by playing the monster for you still? Christine, damn you, _damn you!_ I ask for a wedding, a _wife!_ and you can only give me _this?_ I do not want to be that man! Not for you. It is an easy part to play––too easy, please, Christine–– _you must love me––_ " She could feel his knuckles, hard between the cleft of her ass, as wrapped about the root of his shaft, he directed the head of his cock against her entrance; groaning a sob, he dug his fingers into her bicep. Then as quickly as the invasion had begun, it was over, as Erik pulled himself away and Christine whimpered, overwhelmed; "oh, my love," he said sadly, raggedly, his sonorous throat raw with emotion, "I want you to have the man in me, not the beast––"

Christine could say nothing.

"Please, you must say it!" he rasped, frantic, gliding the fat of his sticky shaft along her slick entrance and over her clit, as Christine whined at the unbearable contact, "Damn it, Christine, you must bind yourself to me! Insufferable child, you know what you want! Give yourself to _me_! Admit to this! Let me _own you!_ "

Tears welled up and poured down her hot cheeks; still she could not untangle her thoughts, she could not speak the words. She thought about launching her body over the balustrade, to fall upon the ignorant revels below; instead she whimpered, feeling her own wanting moisture pool over his cock in his fist and slide the length of her inner thigh, "oh, no, no, no, Erik, no––"

 _"No_ ," he hissed, "of course."

And so his claiming never came; air rushed through his rotted nostrils behind her as, growling in frustration, he dug his fingers into her piled-up skirts; he began to pound himself in his fist, too-roughly, his sticky tip barely brushing her naked, goose-fleshed skin. Behind her, he was grunting softly, steadily, now harder, faster, as her body shuddered with the force of his grasp upon her, and Christine clawed her fingers into the balustrade, meeting Raoul's frantic gaze––

Frozen in mortified shock, Christine could say nothing, do nothing. Erik's free hand groped at her, stroked her, caressed her, clumsily and with frenetic abandon, as Christine flailed for the velvet hangings to snap them shut; soon his shaft beat against her nakedness with his every rapid, violent pull, as he thrust her forward against the balustrade and into the billowing curtains, his hold merciless at her hip, now the small of her back, now her bicep, as he whispered his filthy lust in her ear––

"I could have fucked you a thousand times over," he told her, long fingers wrapping about her gasping throat to drag her mouth close to his, "in your bed as you slept. I could have taken your cunt long ago, on your knees as you prayed to me in your pretty dressing room–– _ah––_ if that is what you wanted, little whore, to be ravished alone in your monster's dark underground, I could have given it to you easily––"

A part of her loved the threat of it; a part of her wanted him to do as he promised. The animal within her spread her thighs wider, opening her naked sex to him. When the tip of his hot cock struck her entrance in his vigor, the slick tip barely slipping inside, she cried out and pushed against him; he growled and dug his teeth into her shoulder.

"You are mine, Christine," he seethed against her skin, "you have been mine since the moment you saw this face. No other man may have you, _no other––!"_

Through the gap in the hastily-shut curtains Christine could still see the mindless revel twisting and throbbing all around, could hear its overwhelming echo like the rushing of blood in her ears. And yet, inside the gasping, grunting quietude of the box with its drawn velvet hangings, red as Hell itself, Christine surrendered; as the Devil's hand closed over her breast she moaned, and when it crawled to her mouth she whispered his unholy name against his fingers––

"Stay," he was begging her still, suckling her throat between his grunted words and nipping the flesh, "stay, stay," his ragged voice growing frantic, panting in time with the spasming of his arm. "I own you! You cannot leave me! You are mine, Christine, mine, _mine_ ––!"

She felt the hot rush splattering against her thighs and rear as he gave a strangled groan. For no longer than an instant he sagged against her, gripping the balustrade with both hands at her sides as he whispered her name, over and over like a prayer; then on a sigh, he brought a hand to the nape of her neck to smooth the disordered hair away from the sweating skin, and touched his lips to her bruised and bitten flesh in a gentle, closed mouth kiss. A soft cloth swept over her rear and between her thighs; with a handkerchief, he was carefully wiping away his mess and hers from her naked, trembling skin.

And then he released her, leaving her panting and shivering against the balustrade, as the unbearable shame of what she had permitted him to do flooded her belly and made her unsteady on her feet. Quickly, she tore aside a panel of the great velvet curtain, flooding the dark, red room with noise and light; looking down, she noticed Raoul was gone. She spun about, half expecting to see him there, in the doorway of the small, shadowed box. To see the disgust, the judgemental hatred, painted across his beautiful brow, as Red Death's cooling seed dripped down her thigh––

But it was only Erik, glaring at her from the cavernous holes of his skeleton's face, his dark expression unreadable. His fly was closed, his costume reordered; his still-ragged breaths the only indication that anything had occurred between them at all. "Erik..." she started, unsure of what to say.

"You cannot have us both, Christine," he said.

Her skin felt sticky beneath her wrinkled skirts. Between her thighs, she ached for him, and it terrified her; she wanted him to take her again, all of her, to push her up against the padded velvet wall and ravish her in the dark as the world waited below. She wanted him to force her to her knees, to make her worship him as he had so often done to her. She wanted to feel the fire of him in her mouth, to choke on it, to die––

The temptation of Hell is great. Mindlessly she passed a hand over her breast, over her belly and down her thighs; as Erik's yellow eyes widened, then narrowed, she leaned back against the arm of the lushly-upholstered chair that still held his absurd hat, drawing her skirts again up her thighs and sliding her hands beneath them.

"Vicious girl, make up your mind," Erik whispered, staring, as she chewed her lower lip and slid a finger over her wet sex, whimpering softly––

There was a short, hasty knock on the exterior door of the loge; startled, Christine tore her fingers from herself, gasped, and dropped her skirts as Erik spun and glared, his entire body suddenly tensed and rigid, radiating a terrible, fearsome energy––the beast, acting only on primal instinct, poised and ready to pounce.

Eager to devour its prey.

"Christine!" came a gentle, boyish cry from the marble hall beyond the door: Raoul. "Christine, what are you doing in there? This box is not safe for you now––you must come from there, at once! You have been inside much too long… If he sees you––Christine, do you understand? It is just as you fear! He will take you away––away from me––"

"I will only be a moment more, Raoul," she stammered, silencing his anxious speech, as Erik moved towards her, skulking across his cruel domain. How could she have forgotten her fear of him? The gaping holes of his eyes burned as ever, like carbuncles in his pallid skin; he was abhorrent, repulsive––how could she have just––how could she want––

 _"Just as you fear,"_ echoed Erik, glaring.

As if he could read the thoughts etched upon her brow, he met her now with all the practiced intimidation of a monster, pressing his horrible face close to hers; Christine pinched her eyes shut tight and reached for the cross that hung around her neck, mindlessly stroking the cool, soothing metal in a subconscious gesture of protection. She gave a sharp cry as Erik clasped his fingers about her own, tearing the bauble from her throat.

"Your rescuer arrives. Shall I tell him what you have just done?" he growled, throwing the necklace to the floor and crushing it underfoot. "What you _almost_ did? What do you wager, girl? Will he still want to save you with my come on your thighs?"

"No!" she hissed, backing away with a palm raised, "you mustn't!" Tears stung at the corners of her eyes; when she blinked, she felt the shaming water spill down her cheeks. "He will shun me, if he knows! They all will! Erik, do not be cruel––"

He raised a hand as if to strike her, then curled the red fingers into a tight fist between them and growled, "she speaks of cruelty, does she! Little _whore!_ Make your damned choice!"

"Ask me again why I do not trust you!" she spat under her breath, eyes darting in fear of his primed fist, "ask me again why I run!"

He lowered his hand, sliding the backs of his fingers over her cheek and jaw as he did.

"Oh, dear girl," he teased, horrible eyes flashing as Christine's flesh crawled with mortified heat, "you know _exactly_ what you do––"

Another flurry of knocking at the door: "Christine, is he in there? For a moment I thought I saw––no, no, of course I did not––" called Raoul, his cheerful voice revealingly anxious. "Why did you draw the curtains?"

Erik sniggered; he stood close enough that Christine could feel his hot breath against her cheek. "Hide!" she whispered, frantic, "I beg of you, please! Do what you do best! If you love me as you say you do––"

"I love you more than him!"

"––if you love me, then––Erik, please, if you love me––you will not ruin me so! Should he find you here––after what I have revealed to him––"

"Stupid girl, _he knows you lived with me!"_ Erik spat, boldly, with thinly-veiled satisfaction, "let him think it! I can assure you he already does. Let him imagine us as he sees fit to––" He stroked a rigid hand over the curve of her hip, yellow eyes following the caress, and added in a growl that made all the soft hair stand up at her neck, "he is not so far from the truth in his assumptions, is he now, my love––"

She struck his hand away from her side, hating the surprisingly anguished look in his horrible eyes as she did. Doubting herself, she hissed, overwhelmed eyes watering, "oh, you toy with my mind!"

"You toy with mine!" he spat. "My love, really, what value has his good opinion if you plan to stay with me? Let him find me here with you. Let him find Erik's mark on your skirts and your thighs…let him see that you belong to another... " All his earlier cruelty was gone from his face as he now spoke; there was something childlike, something wanting in those collapsed features. Waiting for her reply, his palm again ventured to her belly as she trembled beneath his touch, then dragged up her center to grip her breast; Christine fluttered her eyes, momentarily lost to his bruising hold as an irrepressible groan poured from her lips. "Christine," he murmured, thumb carefully, delicately stroking her nipple, though something desperate sounded in his pained voice, something scared, "you will stay with me, my love, won't you––you will not leave your Erik all alone down there––you are a good girl, Erik's good, sweet girl, and you will not abandon him––"

"Erik," she whimpered, grasping his fingers upon her chest in an attempt to forestall him, meeting his plaintive stare, "do not do this to me––"

In an instant she was pushed back against the loge door, her body striking the wood with a crack that resounded like thunder to her ears, as Erik flung her from him, then growled and dove for her, quickly burying both hands in her pile of skirts. Christine cried out in surprise as outside, Raoul continued frantically, "Christine, what was that? Are you still in there? Are you safe?"

But she could not answer; her mouth contorted in a silent moan, her hands scrabbling against the immobile mass of Red Death, as his still-gloved finger pushed between her tensed thighs to thrust suddenly into her sex. She met his unflinching gaze, staring into the bottomless yellow pits of his flaming eyes as he slid another finger inside, pounding his hand against her once, twice, again, quickly mounting an unbearable rhythm. Christine covered her mouth with her hands as a pain like the cut of knife rushed through her body, radiating from her core; and then the pain was over, replaced with a dull, delicious ache, and her body went slack and shuddering against the closed door, mouth parted by her panting breaths, watching Erik through heavy eyelashes.

"You didn't––" she whimpered; he nodded, his death's head like a curse before her own.

" _Mine_ ," he growled.

Leaving her core to throb in their absence, now his fingers eased from inside her. Wolfishly, he bared his teeth as he brought the hand to his lips. A slight, dark stain colored his fingertips, red on red, as he slid them against one another before her gaze, showing her what he had done; then he cleaned the leather with his tongue as Christine stared, in disgust or desire she knew not which.

"Was I wrong?" he breathed, lazily trailing his slick fingers over her heaving collarbone, as between her thighs, she ached from the pain of his crime. "Was I?"

"No," she whispered, transfixed, and with sudden clarity, "it has always been yours––"

He stared at his fingers between them, his splayed hand resting atop her shoulder like a great red spider, and sighed. A shadow passed over his grotesque features, deepening the eroded furrows and darkening the caseous flesh; his thin lips tightened in a cracked line. After several moments he met her stare and whispered, his siren's voice gentle, apologetic, "does it hurt?"

Another sharp string of knocks crackled upon the loge door, startling them both; "Christine, please," called Raoul, his fervent voice cracking, "why did you close the curtain?"

She turned her cheek to the smooth wood, blinking her tears away, and whispered, "oh, Raoul––"

Erik's yellow eyes narrowed at the sound.

"You have bestowed upon your _dear friend_ a great gift, Christine," he said in a low, mocking tone, all evidence of his former humility forgotten, "no man could wish for anything better! And yet I think it is only fair that you also allow me what you have already given him, too-" and smiling horribly, toothily, he pressed his wasted mouth to hers.

Christine moaned against his lips, senselessly taken aback by the demanding heat of his thick, needful tongue suddenly chasing hers; by a single hand coiled round her throat, thumb and forefinger cupping her jaw, he had forced her head against the small door, smothering her lips with his own. His kiss was overwhelming, too much and never enough all at once, repulsive and erotic in turns, and Christine could not breathe for the intensity of it. Against her lips she felt the twisted, lumpen, crepe flesh of his mouth, that grotesque mouth she had seen forming the most beautiful sounds and contorting in the most repulsive anger, tasted the metal of her own stolen blood, smelled the sour, sickly rot of his exposed sinuses and the snot that spilled from the open, repellent holes of his ruined nose as she fought the bile rising on her throat. She tasted his breath, sweet, warm, inside her mouth, sampled his saliva as it drooled from his searching tongue, as it pooled in the corners of their mouths and the sweating skin of their chins, and drank of him, wetly, deeply; and then she squeezed her eyes shut tight and it was only Erik, only the Angel, groaning against her dampened chin; only her Angel devouring her lips and her cheeks and her eyes, as Christine threw her arms around him, driving her fingers into his hair, drawing him closer, closer, until she thought the fire of him must entirely consume her––

"Christine, please," he whispered against her mouth on a shuddering breath, the penitent sinner always, "do not let him in––"

As behind her, Raoul thundered like a madman, "open this God-damned door! Open it!"

Her fiance's frantic cry was enough to rouse her; panting, she tore away from Erik's kiss, mouth raw and wet. "Not now," she hissed, attempting to keep her excited voice low, even as his fingers again found her entrance, easing within her slowly, "Erik, _oh_ , _God forgive me––_ if you will not free me––not now! Not now!"

"When?" he countered, finding a place inside that buckled her knees, "when the boy has stolen you away from me? When you have abandoned Erik forever to find your _Northern Railway of the World?_ "

She gripped his wrist, digging her fingernails into the cool flesh, and still he would not relent; first one finger, then two worked inside her, against her, rapidly driving her to an unbearable mania, setting her legs to shaking and her breath to hiss from her lungs. Again he kissed her; when he broke from her mouth she whispered, panting, "oh, God––oh, no, no, stop––" knowing the words were lies; and then he was on his knees at her feet in that familiar, reverent pose, that terrible pose he had prostrated himself in too many times before, and his mouth was buried between her thighs.

She was hardly conscious of anything, of the repetitive, frantic strike of flesh on wood as Raoul hammered upon the door, of her own back shuddering against its reverse, of the wet, slick, filthy noise, the breathless groaning of the man between her legs. Erik held her by one hand coiled about the underside of her spread thigh, his long fingers digging into the sweating flesh as his other hand groped her rear, the thumb perilously close to entry; with a grunt that resonated deep within her core, he hoisted her legs up over his shoulders such that it was only him keeping her from crumpling to the floor, as she flung her arms out wide to steady herself against the shuddering door frame.

"What was that?" cried her fiance, throwing his weight against the door with a soft grunt, "Christine, I will not let him hurt you! Erik, you-you deformed madman, you _cur!_ I _demand_ that you open this door!

"Tell him to go," hissed Erik, surfacing from between her legs to scowl up at her, licking her liquid, creamy and red, from his lopsided lip, "tell him you are mine. Tell him you have chosen me!"

He swiped at her swollen clit with the tip of his long tongue, staring his yellow stare, and Christine could not look away; without breaking the flame of that gaze she whispered, breathlessly to the man behind the door, "go, Raoul, please! Do as I say!"

Between her thighs Erik laughed softly, digging his fingertips into the fat of her ass. He buried his mouth once more against her; Christine gave a shuddering moan, and Raoul cried, "I will not leave you to him, Christine! You told me to save you! Christine, remember––!"

By the force of Erik's ministrations she slammed again against the door; legs flailing about his shoulders, she dug her heels into his collarbone as he growled into her cunt and Christine groaned out, helpless, "Raoul, please, you must go!"

"He is in there! Christine, I saw him! He is in there!" _Slam._ "Monster, leave her be! Open the door, hear me? If he _touches_ you––" _Slam._ "Christine, open the God-damned door!"

"Please," she cried, unsure of whom she begged to; unbidden, she imagined Raoul's fate should he manage to break down the door; she imagined Erik's hands about his throat as she lay beneath them both, thighs spread and sex bared; she imagined his young, strong body broken on the floor of the red velvet loge, as beside his bloody, beautiful corpse, she writhed under the repulsive carcass of Death himself, moaning out his name for all the Garnier to hear; sobbing, she called out to her poor fiance, attempting to belie the unstoppable rush threatening to take hold of her at any moment, "oh, Raoul, it is too late! I am lost! Go! Go!"

And still Raoul roared, "let me in! Damn it, let me in!"

She covered her mouth with her fist, silently screaming behind it as her fingernails clawed into Erik's skull, driving his gruesome head deeper between her thighs to his answering groan. Insensate pleasure rushed over her like a storm, arching her back against the shuddering panel of the door, curling her toes atop his crimson shoulders. "Oh, God," she whispered, overcome, "oh, God, oh no––"

And then all the tension that had built in her broke, like the snapping of a twig, like lightning to the oldest tree in the wood; it was too much, all too much, and she couldn't contain the truth of it any longer. "Erik!" she cried, calling his name to the Heavens above, sampling the prayer on her lips, " _Erik, Erik––!"_

As beyond the door, she could hear Raoul whisper, "oh, Christine, no, no––"

Erik rose from between her thighs like a man who had just been knighted, his gentle hands carefully replacing her to the floor. Her fluid drooled from his lopsided mouth; with the back of a stained leather hand, he wiped it from his chin, drawing his snakish tongue across the calfskin to capture the last of her and swallow it away. Watching her carefully, he gripped her bicep to keep her on her feet, as Christine dug her fingernails into the red front of his costume and panted against his chest.

He kissed the crown of her head, enfolding her in his arms in the kindest embrace she had felt since her father's death and met her streaming eyes with his own glassy yellow stare, and whispered, "you will never escape me, my love. Never." As he pulled away, he stroked her cheek; Christine lowered her gaze to stare at her feet.

There was a scratching at the door, the metallic murmurings of a lock being picked, along with the heavy, laborious breathing and stifled sobs of the man seeking entry; within, the room pulsed with a silence that thundered in her ears. Before her, Erik stood rigid, watching and listening as she did the same; Christine hastily settled her skirts about her ankles and stood, pushing away from the mass of him. Frozen in that red space, they were waiting for Raoul's inevitable entry, his discovery of her betrayal.

Her shame.

"Christine," whispered Erik, and the word was so beautiful on his Angel's tongue; Christine wanted to cry, to fall onto her knees and clutch at his cloak, begging, but for what she did not know––

The corner of his twisted mouth turned upwards; for whatever he could claim as a smile, Erik was smiling, and it was the sweetest, most pitiable expression Christine had ever witnessed painted across that horror of a face; as she stared, his brow knitted slightly, nervously, and he lowered himself to one knee.

He was holding something, delicately, between the forefinger and thumb of his outstretched hand, something glittering, something familiar; again, he said it, but she could not dare to look––

"Christine, I––"

"What have you done?" she hissed, afraid of his words, instead accusing him of something she knew only she was at fault for; silenced, his smile fell. "You have _ruined_ me––!"

"Ruined you for _whom_?" he answered, frowning now, slowly rising again to stand, "certainly not for me, Christine." He reached for her, palm upwards, his red, stained fingers still outstretched toward her own, adding in no more than the barest whisper, "never for me." Still she could not bring herself to take his hand, as he cast upon her one last, plaintive stare; and then all the softness was gone from his grotesque features, as his yellow eyes narrowed and his ugly mouth contorted into a twisted grimace.

"Remember who you belong to," he said roughly, groping suddenly for her left hand and forcing the ring––it was her ring! When had she lost it?––upon her fourth finger, as Christine gave a quiet cry at the violence of the gesture and the door latch clicked free of the lock, "The blood on your thighs seals your fate! I will wait for you in your dressing room after the ball. Your choice is made!" He held up two fingers, to show her the crusted stain of his bloodied glove, seething, as she whimpered and pinched her eyes tightly shut, "run to him if you like, but you'll never be his, Christine, never! You belong to _Erik_ , now!"

And when she opened her eyes, he was gone.

* * *

_Happy Halloween Y'all!_

_As some of you know, I've been accepting random E/C smut prompts on Tumblr for a while now (most of which end up in the collection, **Far Too Many Notes For My Taste** ) but I have an absurd amount at this point, and seeing as I've got a baby and a total house Reno to contend with, I've resorted to trying to smash them together however I am able. Here's to killing a handful of birds with one stone (technically I've also done this as part of Timebird84's SPOOKY PHANTOBER 2020 –– #31, "Trick of Treat") !!! So on that note:_

_PROMPTS THIS FILLS (mostly... well, I tried):_

  1. _Orgasm in Box 5...? **(notaghost3: this fic is mostly for you, as the only only one of the lot brave enough to reveal your identity!)**_
  2. _heyo I got a prompt :)) I'd love to see some desperate hot and horny erik and christine ? or maybe even just erik solo stuff? any sort of frantic, clumsy, shakey unsure hands kinda shit (Anon)_
  3. _prompt: masochist christine? (not necessarily bsdm but rather she likes being manhandled i guess lol) and feel free to combine this with another prompt since i imagine you get a lot lol. thx! love ur writing always (Anon)_
  4. _erik jacking off, context of your choosing :3c (Anon)_
  5. _a prompt if you don't mind and have time...ok so how about...a Christine who enjoys rough sex and... MUTUAL DIRTY TALKING with Erik (Anon)_
  6. _could we get some more awkward, kinda desperate Erik? Omg I love him so much (Anon)_
  7. _are you still taking requests? cuz— ERIK n CHRISTINE HATE SEX (Anon)_
  8. _Hi ok first I have to say I'm in love with your writing and the stories you made, and second, if it's okay could you maybe write about Erik doing a bit of cunnilingus on Christine please? (Anon)_



_Also... I threw in some Spike/Buffy references for good measure because why the fuck not! (Although you probably didn't notice, and why should you, as this is supposed to be a Phantom of the Opera fic....) #SPUFFYFOREVER_

_ANYWAY, **T hank you so much for reading! Please leave a review! ** I will appreciate and answer every one, even if I'm a bit slow about it! (Blame the baby!)_

_Until next time,_

_Cat_


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